How the Premier League TV deal works

The Premier League TV deal gets called a record, and it is, but the more useful number is the one behind the headline. From 2025/26 the league sells four seasons of domestic broadcast rights to Sky Sports and TNT Sports for a combined £6.7bn, the largest sports media rights deal ever concluded in the UK. How the Premier League TV deal is structured, who gets which matches, and how the money flows to clubs matters more than the round figure, because the parts of the contract that look small decide the weekly product.

The record figure is mostly a volume story, not a price story. The previous contract covering 2019 to 2025 was worth roughly £5bn over a three-year cycle for about 200 live matches a season. The new deal stretches £6.7bn over four years, lifts live matches toward 270 per season, and the Premier League's own accounting puts the increase in annual domestic rights revenue at 4 per cent. Broadcasters are paying more for a lot more product, and per match the economics are closer than the headlines suggest.

What changed between the old and new Premier League TV deal

The last full auction was held in 2018. Sky Sports, TNT Sports (then BT Sport), Amazon Prime Video and the BBC shared the rights, paying £5.1bn, and that contract was rolled over during the pandemic rather than re-tendered. The 2025/26 auction was the first live bidding process since then, and it ended with a much simpler line-up: Sky and TNT own the live packages outright, the BBC keeps Match of the Day highlights, and Amazon, which had streamed a block of midweek fixtures, did not secure a package this time.

Under the old contract about 200 matches per season were shown live in the UK. The new structure collapses the old distinction between a Saturday and a televised Saturday: for the first time, every match played outside the protected 3pm blackout window will be broadcast live, taking the total toward 270 live matches per season. The blackout itself survives, which is why Saturday at 3pm remains the only slot on the calendar you cannot watch legally on television.

Who shows what in the 2025/26 deal

The rights were carved into packages and Sky took the bulk of them. Sky holds a minimum of 215 matches per season across its packages, including the Friday and Monday night slots, the 4.30pm Super Sunday fixture, three full midweek rounds, and every match on the final day of the season, which will be shown live in full for the first time. TNT Sports holds one package of 52 matches per season, keeping the 12.30pm Saturday slot and full coverage of two midweek rounds.

The BBC retains the Match of the Day highlights package for the full four seasons of the deal, so the Saturday roundup continues to cover the league even though the BBC does not show live Premier League football. That split matters for fans: the pitfalls of paying for multiple subscriptions, the end of Amazon's occasional Thursday night block, and the new Sunday 2pm kick-off slot all trace back to which company bought which package.

How the money flows to clubs

Broadcast money is pooled centrally and then distributed to the 20 clubs on a formula, and this is where the Premier League TV deal interacts with club finances. Around two-thirds of broadcast income is shared equally, which is why every club in the division banks a large, predictable baseline before a ball is kicked. The remainder is split two ways: merit payments, which rise with final league position, and facility fees, which increase with the number of times a club's matches are selected for live television.

The structure explains strange league tables of income. A club that finishes eighth can take home more broadcast money than a club that finishes seventh, because facility fees from extra televised appearances outweigh the merit gap. It also means a promoted club arriving in the division is immediately placed on the same equal share as the champions, as the guide to promotion from the Championship explains. Clubs in European competition add a separate layer of broadcast income on top, covered in the European qualification guide.

England's domestic rights auction for 2025/26 raised £6.7bn across four seasons to 2028/29, giving clubs financial certainty until at least 2029. The broadcast calendar that falls out of it is shaped by the fixture list decisions covered in the guide to how the fixture list is made and the kick-off time rules explained in the guide to why kick-off times change.

What the deal does for the league

The Premier League TV deal funds more than club spending. It underwrites the visibility of the competition: around 270 live matches per season, a highlights package that runs four years, and the final day shown in full. It also funds the competitive structure. PSR, the financial rules, work off football-related revenue, and central broadcast money sits at the heart of that revenue for most clubs, which is why the league's distribution model is designed to be as equal as it is.

For the richest clubs the broadcast deal is a smaller share of total income than it is for the smallest. Manchester United, Liverpool and Manchester City add matchday takings, commercial income and European money on top of central broadcast distributions, while clubs lower down the table rely on the equal share for a much larger slice of turnover. The result is a competition where the television money compresses the gap between the top and the bottom, and the club-specific income decides the actual difference. That is the quiet truth of the Premier League TV deal: it buys equality at the base and lets individual clubs spend the extra, which is why the league table and the money table never quite line up.

Key takeaways

• From 2025/26 the Premier League sells four seasons of domestic TV rights for £6.7bn, the largest sports media rights deal concluded in the UK.
• Sky holds at least 215 matches per season; TNT holds one package of 52; the BBC keeps Match of the Day highlights for all four seasons.
• For the first time, every match outside the Saturday 3pm blackout is shown live, taking the annual total toward 270 matches.
• Amazon, which streamed midweek fixtures under the old contract, did not secure a package in the new deal.
• Around two-thirds of broadcast income is shared equally between clubs, with the rest split by merit payments and facility fees for televised appearances.

FAQ

Is the Premier League TV deal a record? Yes. The £6.7bn contract from 2025/26 is the largest sports media rights deal ever concluded in the UK, replacing a contract worth about £5bn over three years.

How many Premier League matches are televised in the UK? Around 270 live matches per season from 2025/26, because every match outside the Saturday 3pm blackout is now broadcast. The old contract showed roughly 200 live matches per season.

Who broadcasts the Premier League in the UK? Sky Sports and TNT Sports hold the live packages, with Sky showing at least 215 matches per season and TNT showing 52. The BBC broadcasts highlights on Match of the Day.

Why is the Saturday 3pm match not on television? The broadcast blackout at 3pm on Saturday is preserved in the new contract, protecting attendances in the lower leagues, so the Premier League TV deal does not include matches in that slot, and the whole fixture scheduling process is covered in the guide to how the fixture list is made.

Does the TV money go directly to the clubs? The league pools the money and distributes it. Around two-thirds is shared equally, and the rest is paid out as merit payments and facility fees, the same mechanism explained in the parachute payments guide.